‘An Almond Doesn’t Lactate’: FDA To Crack Down On Soy, Almond ‘Milk’

WASHINGTON, D.C. (CBS Local) – The Food and Drug Administration has a message for soy and almond milk drinkers: you’re not drinking milk and your bottle labels may change very soon.

FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb addressed the agency’s enforcement of “standards of identity” during a Politico media event in Washington. Gottlieb says the FDA will begin cracking down on companies marketing non-dairy products as “milk.”

“If you look at our standard of identity, there is a reference somewhere in the standard of identity to a lactating animal,” the FDA chief said on July 17. “And, you know, an almond doesn’t lactate, I will confess.”

Gottlieb admitted that the agency hadn’t been doing a thorough job of enforcing what companies label as “milk” and also that the FDA expects someone to file a lawsuit against their decision on behalf of the plant-based dairy imitators.

“This is going to take time,” Gottlieb explained. “It’s not going to take two years, but it probably takes something close to a year to get to go through that process.”